The Jewish Museum

Noa Eshkol (1924 -2007) was an artist, choreographer, and movement notation expert, who produced an immense body of textile works over the course of her career. Her large-scale “wall carpets” were constructed by stitching together a patchwork of found fabric scraps. These lyrical compositions embrace an expansive range of visual motifs, from established art historical genres such as still life and portraiture, to plays on nature, geometry, the built environment, and well-known historical figures.

Two exemplary works from the Israeli artist's wall carpets series were recently added to the . “Vase with White Apples” (1997) playfully replicates these staples of the still life genre across multiple patterns, sizes, and arrangements, while the vibrant red sun glowing from the center of “Orange Sunset” (1980s) evokes the golden hour at the end of the day.

🎨: , 1. “Vase with White Apples,” 1997, Cotton, wool, silk, cotton-linen, twill, percale, and tulle. Gift of the Noa Eshkol Foundation for Movement Notation and neugerriemschneider, Berlin, in honor of James S. Snyder, Director of the Jewish Museum from 2023. 2. “Orange Sunset,” 1980s, Cotton, rayon, and polyester. Purchase: Gift of Rivka Saker and U*i Zucker in honor of Claudia Gould, Director of the Jewish Museum from 2011 to 2023; additional support provided by Artis.

Now on view! “Engaging with History: Works from the Collection” features a selection of objects, including painting, sculpture, photography, and ceremonial art from the Jewish Museum’s collection of over 30,000 works.

As the Jewish Museum reimagines a largescale presentation of its collection, which will open on the third and fourth floors in late 2025, this installation features some of the Jewish Museum's great treasures as well as new acquisitions on view for the first time, including works by Richard Avedon, Dawoud Bey, and Kali Spitzer; a recently acquired tapestry by William Kentridge, and more.

On view through January 5, 2025. Learn more and plan your visit: https://thejm.net/3TnPYKr

📸 : 1-2. Photos by Scott Rudd Events 3-4. Installation view of "Engaging with History: Works from the Collection" at the Jewish Museum, NY, September 13, 2024-January 5, 2025. Photo by Kris Graves.

Now on view—“Ilit Azoulay: Mere Things” ✨

This exhibition offers a window into the work of interdisciplinary artist Ilit Azoulay, spanning the past 14 years. Initially trained as a photographer, the artist (pictured in the first image) has developed a multimedia practice that remains deeply rooted in her primary medium. “Mere Things” features large scale digital photocollages of archival objects that explore how images and objects transmit knowledge, shape memory, and support or undermine historical narratives, as well as a new work that responds to the collections and context of the Jewish Museum and selections from the series “Queendom” (2022), first presented as part of Azoulay’s solo exhibition for the Israeli Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.

On view through January 5, 2025. Learn more and plan your visit: https://thejm.net/3ZlYLR2.

📸 : 1,3,4,5: Photos by Scott Rudd Events. 2,6,7: Installation view of "Ilit Azoulay: Mere Things" at the Jewish Museum, NY, September 13, 2024-January 5, 2025. Photo by Kris Graves. Artwork(s) © Ilit Azoulay

Participants with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and their care partners are invited to join us for an upcoming JM Journeys program that encourages creating personal connections to original works of art and each other. Together we will explore the exhibition "Ilit Azoulay: Mere Things" with facilitated discussions and multi-sensory experiences.

This free program takes place on Wednesday, September 18 at 2 pm. Learn more and register: https://thejm.net/3zt7oyy

🎨: Ilit Azoulay, "Vitrine No. 4: (Take, for instance, this) true story (2017)" from the series “No Thing Dies.” Inkjet print, gold leaf. The Tony and Trisja Podesta Collection, Washington. D.C. © Ilit Azoulay

In Jewish tradition, a memorial candle is lit on the anniversary of a person’s death to commemorate the loss of a loved one.

The anniversary of one’s death is called yahrtzeit in Yiddish, meaning “time of year.” Many Sephardic Jews use the Hebrew term nachala or “legacy,” while others use the Ladino word meldado. Some Persian Jews use the term saal, simply meaning “year.”

Whatever your tradition, we mark this time to honor the lives lost on September 11, 2001. May their memory be for a blessing.

🎨 : , Memorial Light, c. 1958, Clay: fired and glazed.

Join artist Ilit Azoulay and curator Shira Backer for a first look at "Ilit Azoulay: Mere Things," opening September 13. The exhibition features selections from 2010 to the present, including "Unity Totem" (2024), a new work that responds to the collections and context of the Jewish Museum. This artist-led gallery talk will take place Thursday, September 12 at 6:30 pm and is free with Museum admission.

Rsvp and learn more: https://thejm.net/3TpZVr4

We are saddened to hear of the passing of German visual artist (1944-2024). Her diverse body of daring and transformative work ranged form performances, films, and sculptures to installations, drawings, and photographs.

The Jewish Museum is honored to have this work by Horn in the collection, part of the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation gift. Like other works in Horn’s “Body Landscapes” series, this work relates to the artist’s early performance pieces. Horn consistently drew attention to the body, opening up a larger meditation on the sensuality and pain, the power and vulnerability of being human.

🎨: Rebecca Horn, "Rosenheit der Propheten," 2010, Mixed media and acrylic on paper.

Say goodbye to summer by catching the final week of "Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration," closing soon on September 15! See new works in painting, sculpture, and installation by seven emerging artists who use supernatural color and uncanny luminescence to unsettle the figure. ✨

Featuring works by:
Austin Martin White
Sara Issakharian
Sasha Gordon
Chella Man
Sula Bermudez-Silverman
Ilana Savdie
Rosha Yaghmai

🎟️ Plan your visit at the link in bio

This Sunday, September 8, join us for an artist-led gallery talk and book launch presented in conjunction with "Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration" featuring Ilana Savdie and Liz Munsell, Barnett and Annalee Newman Curator of Contemporary Art, followed by a book signing including artists Ilana Savdie and Sula Bermudez-Silverman!

Learn more and RSVP: https://thejm.net/4dHP9EB

📸 Installation view of "Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration" at the Jewish Museum, NY, May 24-September 15, 2024. Photo © Frederick Charles.

These cool mornings are perfect to enjoy with a cup of tea. With fall almost here, who is excited for the season change? ☕ 🍁

🎨 : Garret Schnack, Tea Pot, 1791-94, New York, Silver: engraved, appliqué, enamel, and cast; wood.

This , join us for our upcoming Family Workshop on Sunday, September 8 at 1 pm! Families in the ASL community with kids ages 5-12 are invited to explore the exhibition, “Overflow, Afterglow: New Work in Chromatic Figuration” and create art inspired by the works on view.

Learn more and register for this free program: https://thejm.net/3AY7IWq

Heading into Labor Day weekend ready for some sun! ☀️ 🏖️

Wishing everyone a restful and fun long weekend no matter where you're spending it! Still looking for plans? The Jewish Museum is open everyday this holiday weekend from 11am - 6pm!

🎨 : , "Untitled (Woman Sunbathing)," 1982-85, Chromogenic color print (Ektacolor).

Did you know that buckles of the fekroun or turtle type, like these ones, are used at the end of a small belt called a mdemma? The flower motif decorating these buckles is typical of Essaouira.

🎨 : Belt buckles, early 20th century, Morocco, Silver: cast and engraved.

Happy ! 🐶

The loyal companionship of these furry friends can be seen in this work that captures a thoughtful moment between a writer and his faithful hound. 🐾

🎨 : , "William Struck, Jr.," 2004, Gouache on paper.

Sun and Moon bracelets 🌞 🌑 ✨

These bracelets, which derive their name from their alternating gold and silver panels, are very fine examples of Jewish craftsmanship in Morocco. Although unsigned, they were most likely of Jewish manufacture, since the great majority of Moroccan silversmiths at that time were Jewish.

🎨 : Sun and Moon Bracelets, 19th-early 20th century, Northwest Morocco, Silver and gold: die-stamped, niello, and appliqué.

Executed in a folk style yet filled with imagery drawn from court life, this wall plaque was intended to indicate the direction of prayer, mizrah (east). The word mizrah is inscribed in the style of lettering used for word panels in Hebrew manuscripts.

Crowning the composition are two rampant lions supporting a coat of arms. They are flanked by grenadiers dressed in uniforms dating to the early eighteenth century, before headgear with brass plates became popular. Below are a pair of frolicking angels framing a palace facade in a style popular in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The dates of the architectural comparisons and grenadiers' uniforms suggest a moment early in the century for the mizrah.

🎨 : Mizrah, early 18th-century, Prussia (?), Gouache on cut-out paper.

Happy ! Celebrate the art of photography with some photographs from the . 📸

Which one is your favorite? ✨

❤️ Tu B’Av, the Jewish Day of Love, begins tonight at sundown! ❤️

During Jewish wedding ceremonies, the groom gives the bride a marriage contract, or ketubbah, with a handwritten or printed text which has been signed by witnesses and is frequently decorated. This marriage contract was made in 1774 in Trieste, Italy. 🌹

🎨: Marriage Contract, 1774, Trieste (Italy), Ink, gouache, and paint on cut-out parchment.

This lush semi-abstract n**e by Larry Rivers depicts “Miss New Jersey,” the artist's nickname for Maxine Groffsky, his girlfriend at the time. Groffsky, a graduate of Barnard College and a fixture of the downtown New York art scene in the early 1960s, later became the Paris editor of the Paris Review (1965-1972) before establishing her own literary agency specializing in fiction. She was not only Rivers’ lover and muse, but also Philip Roth’s, inspiring the unattainably rich and beautiful character of Brenda Patimkin in Roth’s novella “Goodbye, Columbus” (1959), published a year before this painting was created.

This remarkable work, which was recently added to the , is rendered in Rivers’ distinctive style: deliberately unfinished in appearance, yet rendered in confidently expressive strokes of bright paint. Eschewing straightforward figuration, Rivers instead smears and omits parts of the body to abstract his representation of the subject.

🎨: , “Summer N**e, Miss New Jersey III,” 1960, Oil and charcoal on canvas. © Larry Rivers / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Gift of Ellen Cantrowitz.

Step right up! 🎡✨

This photograph by makes us want to be on the boardwalk playing arcade and carnival games! Coney Island was a goldmine of opportunities for many New York Photo League photographers, including Elkort. In the early 1950s, his work primarily focused on the art of documentary photography, capturing the moments of everyday people enjoying their free time at Coney Island.

What is your favorite boardwalk game to play? 🎠

🎨 : Martin Elkort, "Strongman, Coney Island," 1950, printed c. 2000, Gelatin silver print.

In medieval Jewish homes in the kingdom of Aragon, Spain, small cavities were carved out of stone doorposts to hang passages from Deuteronomy inscribed on a parchment scroll, as the Bible mandates. The parchment was placed inside and covered by a protective device. None of these coverings survives from Spain, but the same form of mezuzah was used in Morocco by those Jews who descended from Iberian refugees, and late examples of their covers survive.

This example was used to cover the parchment in a door niche in Morocco in the home of Mas'uda Lakhriyef, whose name is cut out below the name Almighty in the top section. The remaining decoration is composed of arabesques of flowering vines that are enhanced by engraved details and set against cutout voids.

🎨 : Mezuzah Cover of Mas'uda Lakhriyef, 20th-century, Morocco, Silver: engraved and pierced.

As the world gathers to celebrate the Summer closing ceremony today, explore the beauty of through an artist’s lens. This painting by Camille Pissarro captures a view of the Louvre over the Seine in 1902. ✨

What was your favorite moment from this year's ? 🏅🇫🇷

🎨: , "The Louvre, Foggy Morning (Third Series) (Le Louvre, matin brumeux, 3 série)," 1902, Oil on canvas.

There’s nothing like getting lost in a good book 📚✨

This Maira Kalman work is our mood this . Where’s your favorite spot to read a good book?

🎨: , "know -," 2004, Gouache on paper.

Happy from the Jewish Museum! 🐾💙

Swipe to meet some of the Jewish Museum staff's purrfectly adorable feline friends! 🐱

🐈: 1. Batman 2. Georgie 3. Jasmine and Mushu 4. Kisa and Minnie 5. Spike and Rio 6. Carmela 7. Kicia 8. Kevin 9. Budget